Previous treatment regimens for damaged and/or weakened spinal bones and cushioning/connective tissues are invasive procedures that cause significant trauma to the patient. Two surgical techniques have been developed in an attempt to treat fractured spinal bones in a minimally-invasive procedure.
One of these techniques, vertebroplasty, involves the injection of a flowable reinforcing material, usually polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA—commonly known as bone cement), through an 11-gage spinal needle or cannula device into an injured vertebral body. Shortly after cement injection, the liquid filling material polymerizes and increases in hardness, desirably supporting the vertebral body internally, alleviating pain and preventing further collapse of the injected vertebral body.
Another technique for treating vertebral fractures, kyphoplasty, is a more recently developed modification to the vertebroplasty technique. In a kyphoplasty procedure (also known as balloon-assisted vertebroplasty), an expandable device is inserted inside the damaged vertebral body, and is then expanded within the bone. Desirably, on removal of the expandable device this procedure creates a void within the bone that can be filled with bone cement or other load bearing material as a distinct segment of the treatment procedure, rendering the fractured bone load-bearing. In effect, the procedure creates an internal “cast,” protecting the bone from further fracture and/or collapse.